Weathered Spines and Broken Rhymes
by RebelzHeart
Summary: "I have depression," Michelle grounds out, as though that weren't a giant bomb. (Homecoming verse)
1. Chapter 1

He finds her in the library.

(He always does, lately.)

Michelle's curled up with a book in a corner, hair clipped away from her face in a rare show of care (or perhaps, it's a lack of care that brings her to do it), knees tucked against her chest, face weary but caught up in the book.

"Hey," Peter sits down and next to her and smiles as brightly as he can manage with the concern thrumming in his chest. "We've, uh, been worried."

She snaps her head up, stares at him for a moment, eyes bright and dazed and reorienting herself back to earth, away from the world of whatever it is that she's reading, and then she gets that baffled look that she does when she doesn't get something and is trying to figure it out like the modern Holmes that she is. "Why? What in your dork kingdom got messed up this time?"

It's a pale attempt at what she usually is like, trying to insult but the words just sort of coming out tired. (She's been really tired, lately, and it worries Peter a lot.)

"Um," Peter swallows, wondering how to say this eloquently, (then he remembers that he's Peter Parker, and this eloquence that they speak of is not a program that's in his hardware, instead having been replaced by the older and generally more useless model known as stuttering and saying everything in the worst way possible). "You."

And Michelle stares at him, long and hard, and her eyes are dark and stormy and intense but at the same time there's still that kind of weariness lurking at the edges that Peter can't quite identify but finds that he doesn't like.

"Sorry, loser, but I'm not part of your kingdom."

"Okay." Peter lets out a small laugh, because he would usually, maybe, it's just that she's been weird lately and it lacks her usual... _Michelle_ -ness. "Then we're all loyal subjects of _your_ kingdom, and as your loyal subjects, we've been worried."

She hums and flips a page, and for a moment she seems so _normal_ , but then Peter remembers that Michelle takes drama, and according to the people who've been trying to get her to join the club, she's pretty fantastic.

"There's nothing to worry about." She says.

Peter makes a face, one where he tries to look disbelieving and stern but sort of just ends up looking concerned and giving her the puppy dog eyes. " _Michelle_ ," He says, and there's a lot in that one word, one that makes her peek up at him from her book again, face tired and weary but still trying to shove him away.

"I'm an introvert," She claims, "So I just want to be alone."

"This is different." Peter insists.

"I'm an expert in psychology." Michelle rebuttals, which is actually true (she took a few introductory college courses online last year for fun), but doesn't make much of a difference.

"Then you should know that something's wrong." Peter raises an eyebrow, and really hopes that Michelle doesn't kill him for being so forward.

She, in all of her benevolent dictatorship, doesn't kill him. She does say, "Bug off." though, in a very irritated voice, which he takes as an 'or else my benevolence isn't going to last you very long'.

"Please, Michelle." Peter sighs, and she _stares_ at him, long and hard, before she slams her book shut and stands up, scowling at him.

" _Bug off, Peter_." She snaps, harsh and cold and definitely _not_ Michelle, because the girl in front of him is angry and burning and tired and sick of something (maybe everything, maybe nothing, he doesn't know, and he almost doesn't want to find out, but...).

"I _can't_ , Michelle." He replies, standing up and staring at her, nose to nose, which doesn't quite work that well, because she's taller than him and twice as intimidating.

She stares at him, glares at him, and then blows a strand of hair away that's dropped from the clip. " _Why_?" She growls, and it's a question but it just comes out more like a threat, in the same tone in which someone would say, _I'll gut you_.

"Because we're friends," And they sort of are, Peter thinks, maybe, but he's not sure and that's the best answer he's got, so, well, he's kind of bluffing at this point.

And Michelle just kind of deflates at that, closing her eyes and breathing and sort of squinting at him, before she finally grounds out, low and irate, "I have depression."

And well. Isn't that just a giant bomb.


	2. Chapter 2

**Reply to Punzie the Platypus:** Thank you!  
 **Reply to Animalover48:** Thank you! (But don't rush me, I have a life, too.)

* * *

They end up watching movies at Peter's place, Aunt May taking a moment to tease them both before softening around Michelle and acting very sweet and kind and... well, May-ish.

Peter sort of sits there, shuffling through movies awkwardly and inwardly freaking out (because how do you act around someone with depression without accidentally triggering them or staying something stupid and sweet baby cheescakes what if he screws up and hurts her mental health even more and auuugh he's going to stick his foot in his mouth and say something supid).

Meanwhile, Michelle sits there on his couch and watches him with a humorless smile, hair beginning to fall back in her face and pulled back into a loose ponytail, shoes off as she tucks socked feet up onto the couch, pulling her knees tightly into her chest before she sighs and informs Peter, "I haven't changed one bit."

And Peter wonders _how can she say that_ because this revolutionizes everything, it's all different and weird and...

"Just because you've got one more piece of the puzzle, it doesn't change what the end product is. It just helps you get a bit closer to seeing what it is. But I'm the same as I ever was. I'm still me."

Peter breaths at that, deep and slow and murmurs a soft, "I'm sorry," though for what, he's not quite sure, because he doesn't know if it's because he didn't notice or realize or if he's just sorry for acting weird and stupid and not normal.

"No problem." Michelle replies quietly, tiredly, before seeming to realize how she's acting, and tacks on a quick, "Loser."

Peter laughs a bit at that, light and soft yet somehow just a bit too loud, and then he asks, "So, I should just, act normal?"

Michelle's fingers twitch like she wants to draw, and she hugs her knees a bit tighter, chin jutting out as she replies agreeably, "Just don't start walking on glass around me, or I swear I'll clock you ten ways to Sunday."

Peter laughs at that, too, and maybe he's laughing a bit much but it's alright, more comfortable, so he says, "Never," despite the fact that he quite hypocritically had been doing so about a few seconds ago.

Michelle picks up a pillow and throws it at his head. "You're such a dork." She rolls her eyes, and Peter's smile fades a bit when it hits in that she has depression and somehow still finds him being himself okay.

"But you like me being a dork." He muses, and she scowls at him even more (because it's true, he thinks to himself, it's _true_ and she just doesn't want to admit it out loud, despite the fact that she's admitting it in her actions). "What movie do you want to watch?"

There's something resembling relief in Michelle's eyes that they're not pressing the topic as she snorts, "I don't know, do you have any good ones?"

"All the best," Peter promises, and she raises an eyebrow at him at that.

"So you mean, all the geekiest." She responds, and Peter can't help but admit that she's basically hit the nail on the head.

"Geeky is good!" He protests, not even bothering to try anything resembling denial.

Her eyes soften and she uncurls, _unfurls_ like a giant sheet, legs pulling away from her chest and arms stretching out, smooth and quick, and then she just sits there, legs dangling over the edge of the sofa as she leans back and sighs. "Whatever you say," She says sarcastically, though there's a touch of fondness behind it.

"Then I say." Peter replies, smiling.

"Fine." She sounds like she wants to smile, but can't quite do it yet. (And that's alright, Peter thinks. Baby steps.)

"Fine." Peter echoes the sentiment.

And it is.


	3. Chapter 3

**Reply to AnimaLover48:** Aw, thank you! Maybe not perfection, I'm not much of a writer. But thank you!  
 **Reply to Punzie the Platypus:** Thanks! Yep, Peter's a total dork.

* * *

Michelle, Peter's noticed, wears a line of colorful rubber bands along her forearm underneath her long jackets.

He notices a lot of things about her, now that he's realized just how little he knows.

The way that she curls over her food, more interested whatever book she's reading than in what she's eating, that she wears mostly dark colors but is won't complain if she's forced to wear something bright.

How she raises her eyebrows kind of crookedly, one following the other, and the way that she likes to run her finger down the book page when she's thinking to keep up the illusion of being physically busy, when really, it's her mind that's thrumming and she hasn't read a single word on the page.

She thinks a lot, and when she's done thinking, she likes to say one sentence that sums up her thoughts, or something that will spark a discussion.

Then she'll draw away, retreat back to her shell, and just be content to listen and watch them over the top of her book.

She snaps the rubber bands on her wrists when she gets frustrated, making a stinging, _slap_ sound, and it brings her back to earth.

She watches others a lot, Peter realizes. He used to be curious how she knew so many things when she always seemed lost to the world, nose buried in a book, but many times he'll look at her only to notice that she's spent the past hour not so subtly staring at a couple snogging with a mixture of disgust, pity, and utter apathy.

"Jealous?" Cindy teases, elbowing her and smirking.

Michelle gives Cindy a look filled with such disbelief that _Peter_ feels like an idiot. "Gross." She says, and turns back to her book.

Cindy just laughs at that, and agrees with Michelle's sentiment.

Peter just sits and listens, content, for once, to play the part of the viewer and just watch for a while.

He asks her about the rubber bands one time, in the cafeteria at lunch. She glances at Ned, a quick flicker, and then she shrugs and says it's not important. "Tell you some other time," She says, which, by that point, has begun to mean _in private_.

He nods and agrees, then distracts Ned by talking about the color spectrum and the pros and cons of infrared vision.

Michelle tells him about it while they're working on Decathlon stuff in a cafe, draped over her smoothie and eating Peter's muffin while he eats a cookie and dips it in his lemonade. (She teases him mercilessly until she tastes it, then she starts doing it, too.)

"I read online that rubber bands are good for, um," She sort of falters, stumbling through her words, and stops mid sentence to take a long sip of her smoothie, nervous and fumbling and not really Michelle, but still _her_.

 _Take your time, it's okay,_ Peter wants to say, but he's kind of afraid to because this is Michelle, who accepts no pity and would probably clock him if he said that.

He says it anyways.

And it's a testament to how she's feeling that she doesn't even get mad or insult him, just sort of nods and pulls nervously at the bands on her wrists, letting them snap back with a little _thwip,_ and Peter can tell that she's frustrated with that little movement.

She keeps doing it for a while, pulling through them in order, from pinks to reds to oranges in rainbow order, moving methodically down her forearm before she stops a few bands in, takes a deep breath, and stops.

"I heard that it's good for when you feel like self harming." She admits, and the admission stings Peter, and she starts picking at the bands and he just wants to lunge over the table and grab her wrist and maker her stop but he knows that won't help anything and knows that he can't really help her any more than she's already been trying in that area, so he just stirs his lemonade and sort of stares at it as though it would give him all the answers. "Like, it kind of stings but it only hurts for a second and it doesn't leave any marks or wounds and it's not so bad."

"Oh." His voice sounds small and sad, and he wishes that it didn't come out that way (not quite for his sake, but more for Michelle's, who looks downtrodden and worried and nervous and he can hear the shaky little _thwap_ of the bands hitting her skin). "Can I hug you?"

The words startle him, and they startle her, too, he can tell by the way that her hand freezes and her eyes turn wide as saucers and she _stares_ at him, mouth wide open and cheeks red and hands frozen mid air.

Then she sort of sighs and nods, and as he hugs her, she affectionately murmurs in his ear, "You're such a loser."

He's worried about her but he smiles anyways because she's alive and well and she's not hurting herself too badly so he asks, "Is that a bad thing?"

Her lips twitch, like she doesn't quite know but does know but just doesn't want to say it, then she answers truthfully, "Not with you."

He smiles at her, and she doesn't smile at him but she tucks her head onto his shoulder and eats some of his cookie so he takes it as a win.


	4. Chapter 4

**Reply to Punzie the Platypus:** Thanks! Is there any chance that you could enable your PM feature?

* * *

"Special delivery for Miss Michelle Jones?" Peter asks, rapping at Michelle's door frame and hoping that she doesn't turn him away.

She pokes her head through the door and stares at him with a haggard expression, scrubs her face, and sighs. Dark shadows trace arcs under her eyes and her forehead's creased as though she's confused about something, and she accepts the cup of tea and the saucer from him with a slight murmur of, "Thanks, Peter."

He sort of just stands there, shuffling awkwardly, and then politely says, "I can leave, if you'd like."

"Please." Michelle mumbles, and when she catches the hurt flicker across Peter's expression, she quickly adds, "It's not you being bad or anything, I just can't deal with people right now."

He offers her a long, hard stare, as though he could see into her soul and check if she's really okay, but evidently he can't because he just nods and sighs, "I understand. Thank you."

She wants to smile at him but she really can't muster up the energy to, so she just shuts the door in his face and wishes that she weren't so cruel.

Peter, to his credit, doesn't complain or knock. He just answers, quietly, acceptingly, "Okay. You know what to do if you need me." and walks away.

Michelle thinks that it's selfish that despite the fact that it was she who was shutting him out, she felt lonely and mad at him for doing that.

She takes another sip of the tea (it's sweet, lots of sugar, but no milk, and she savors the taste) and presses her back against the door, wishing that she could have opened the door and smiled and said _come in_ in the same kind voice that May used when she went to visit Peter.

But she can't bring herself to do it so she just slumps there, sitting with her back to the door and the tea in her hand and puts down the saucer with a little _clink_ as she sets it against the floor. (She's not sure why, but even that little sound irritates her and makes her want to scream.)

" _Crap._ " She snarls and sends her teacup flying across the room. It smashes into her bookshelves and tea spills over countless pages. "Aw, no, come _on_..." She groans and slams her head back against the door.

 _I'm so stupid._ She wants to scream and kick something and break everything but she hates herself when she watches the pages of her books turn brown and stained and the glass shatters to the floor.

She slams the saucer on the floor anyways, just for good measure, and watches it with empty satisfaction as it breaks and pieces fly everywhere.

Man, she's so _stupid_.

"Michelle?" Her mom's voice calls out with a slight rap of the door. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Michelle responds hollowly, shame curling in her gut as she breathes out softly, trying not to sob, "I'm fine."

Her mom's silent, and Michelle thinks that she's going to call her out on it, before she murmurs, "Your friend that was here to see you..."

"Is he gone?" Michelle asks, unsure whether or not she wants him to be there or not, hoping that he'll be there but wishing that he isn't.

"Yeah." Her mom answers, and Michelle nods even though she knows that nobody can see her.

"I, I just want to be alone right now." She says.

Her mom is quiet and thoughtful, and Michelle repeats, "I'm fine."

"I want you to be better than fine." Her mom says, but then Michelle hears footsteps and she knows that she's left alone again.

She wishes she weren't so cruel.

Then, maybe she'd trust herself to call Peter and apologize.

Instead she snaps the rubber band against her wrist and itches for a knife.


	5. Chapter 5

**WARNING: Swearing.** Very angry swearing.

 **Reply to Punzie the Platypus:** I know that calling Peter seems better, but it's actually really mature and smart of Michelle to make this decision. If she called Peter, in all likelihood she'd insult him and then hate herself for it later.  
 **Reply to Animalover48:** First of all, thank you very much! That's very sweet of you to say! Second of all, I never said that she actually did it, just that she was tempted. Third of all, even though it helps a lot, there's no way that someone else can save you if you have a mental illness, you can only save yourself, and Michelle's doing a fantastic job of it, because she's already resisting the temptation to cut.

* * *

"They keep telling me to fucking breath." Michelle snaps at Peter and Ned as they step into school. "Like, _fuck,_ do I look like I'm not breathing? _Huh?_ Do I look like I'm going to asphyxiate? Or are they just fucking stupid?"

"They just want to help." Peter says. Quiet, honest, perfect Peter who's patient with her no matter how stupid or annoying she's being.

She wants to punch him in his perfect little face and kick him clear across the country. "Well, they're not." She snarls, and kicks a stone away, hoping that it will dissipate some of her anger, but she just gets even angrier when her toe starts stinging. " _Fuck_."

"You're swearing a lot." Ned notes, concern filling his features.

"No shit, Sherlock." Michelle sneers, and hates herself for the hurt that flickers across Ned's features.

"Sorry." He mumbles, and ducks his head away and Michelle wishes she weren't so screwed up in the head.

"No," She mumbles, and because the words are sticking in her throat and she feels like she's choking on them, she quickly spits out the next words, "It was my fault. You didn't do anything wrong. I..." She hates herself. She wishes she didn't exist and she'd never been born and this whole mess never happened and she wishes that she were a good person and not so messed up and stupid and _wrong_. "Sorry." She ends up sighing, because really, what else can she say?

 _An apology would be nice, for a start._ Part of her thinks.

 _Shut up._ Most of her snaps.

She pulls at her rubber band and snaps it back, forcing herself to breathe.

"It's okay." Ned replies in an oddly subdued tone, and she hates herself for making him speak that way (because she _knows_ that she's the cause of that, that and the kicked puppy look on Peter's face). "We all have our off days."

"No," Michelle mutters, picking up a rock and throwing it back the the ground. It smashes by her feet and breaks neatly in two. She glares at it, and growls, "I'm just a bag of shit."

"You're not a bag of bad stuff." Peter answers softly, and he curves his fingers against hers with a dopey, hesitant little smile, as though he doesn't quite know whether or not he should be smiling.

To be honest, Michelle doesn't know either. "Fuck off, Parker." She snaps instead, because she's angry and stupid and a bag of shit. "You know that's a lie."

Peter's smile wobbles and Michelle absolutely despises herself in that moment, but he powers on anyways, like the idiot that he is. "You know it's not." He answers, voice as soft as butter.

She snarls at him and jams her hands into her pockets. "Why the fuck do you care?" She demands angrily, fingers curling into fists.

"Because we're your friends." Peter says, looking down and away from her and Michelle hates herself.

 _Maybe we shouldn't be._ She thinks to herself, closing her eyes. _Peter and Ned are too good for me._

 _"_ Okay." She breathes instead, and hangs her head as she tries to remember a time when she wasn't so cruel.


	6. Chapter 6

**Reply to Animalover48:** No need to apologize, it's an easy thing to misunderstand. Thank you!

* * *

Peter, for some reason that Michelle, for the life of her can't figure out, decides to stick with her after school.

"Fuck off, Parker." She says, but there's none of the venom from that morning, only bitter self loathing and regret.

"So I was thinking," Peter continues speaking as though he hadn't heard her even though Michelle _knows_ that he had, "That we could stop by that convenience store on 4th Street and get some tea and chocolate, then maybe we could read or go to the library for a while or something, and then you could draw and I can work on robots or something and then..."

Michelle stops walking, turning to stare at Peter incredulously.

He takes a few more steps before pausing and his knuckles whiten around his backpack strap as he turns to hesitantly look at her, a scared expression on his features. (She hates that he has it around her.) "Michelle?" He asks quietly.

"Why are we friends?" She demands, and his face falls, breaking and cracking and utterly _heartbroken_. "No... fuck, not like that, Peter. You know it's not like that. I just... you're too good for me. I'm this mess, I yelled at you and swore at Ned, why are you sticking around with me?"

Peter stares at her with those wide, innocent eyes that bore into her soul and then he answers quietly, "We're friends, Michelle. You're just having a bad day, okay?"

Michelle snaps the rubber bands around her wrists. "I don't deserve you." She says quietly, _thwap, thwap, thwap._

Peter shrugs and slides his hand against his backpack strap again. "I don't see why not." He says quietly.

Michelle stares at her feet and scuffs her toes against the floor. "I can." She answers quietly, and she peeks at Peter, wanting to see but not wanting to see and he still looks absolutely stricken, like she'd just told him that someone had died. "I can think of _every reason_ why you should just fuck off and tell me to fuck off and I can see every reason why you'd leave me and call me a piece of shit and..."

" _Michelle_." Peter's voice turns harsh and cold and Michelle closes her eyes and thinks _that's it, I screwed up, I'm done, he's mad, he hates me, he gets it now..._ except that isn't Peter, is it? Because somehow she finds him hugging her, tight and warm and burying his face in her neck. "Please don't say that."

His voice is as soft as silk and as cracked as shattered glass and he holds her like she's something precious that he couldn't bear to lose.

The thought makes her want to cry and she just stands there, stunned, arms hanging by her side as she just stares straight ahead, unable to really focus on anything, she's too stunned to.

"I can think of a million reasons why you're absolutely fantastic, okay?" Peter murmurs, his breath warm against her shoulders. "I can think of a million more why I'd want to be your friend. But I don't need to be your friend because of reasons, okay? I'm just your friend. No requirements. This isn't a job, you can make mistakes and it's _okay_."

Michelle wonders if she can hug him back.

Her hands stay glued to her side as she whispers, "Okay."

"Are you telling the truth?" Peter asks quietly, grip tightening like he needs to make sure she's still there, still with him.

 _No._ Michelle thinks.

 _Lie._ She tells herself.

 _Say yes._ She closes her eyes.

"I don't know." And _shit_ , now her voice is cracking too, and she wants to hold him back, so she asks, trying her best not to cry, "Can I hug you back?"

He smushes his face into her shoulder even more. "Always." He breathes quietly, firm and reassured and kind.

So Michelle wraps her arms back around Peter and holds him and buries her face in his shoulder and cries and thinks _okay._

Maybe not completely okay. Not yet, anyways.

But a little bit. Maybe she'll be okay, someday.

"Thank you." She sobs into Peter's shoulder.

"You don't need to thank me." He replies fiercely. "We're friends."

Something warm and right and good swells up in her chest and she thinks that this is good, so good, so much better than digging a knife into her wrist or snapping a rubber band against her arm.

This, more than that, feels _right_.

And, Michelle thinks, maybe someday she'll feel right, too.


	7. Chapter 7

**Reply to Animalover48:** Thanks!

* * *

They go to a little cafe on Bridge later, a warm, cozy little hole in the wall that smells like coffee and sugar and chocolate.

It's warm and sweet and Peter buys a tea for Michelle even though she knows that his family is tight for money, smiling softly at her and saying that he's not too thirsty even as he pulls out a water bottle and downs it, then he rummages in his bag and pulls out a small, wrapped piece of candy and hands it to her, adding quickly that it was a free mint from a restaurant that he'd been saving.

She tries to protest, but he just smiles at her and refuses to take it back, so eventually she accepts it and he smiles brightly as he leads her to a little booth in the corner that neatly hides them from the world as he pulls out his homework and she sips her tea.

"You really are too good for me." She kind of laughs, except she's just finished crying her eyes out so it comes out as half a sob, too.

Peter turns bright red and shakes his head. "No way." He sighs, pressing his pencil against his upper lip and chewing thoughtfully against the inside of his cheek. "I'm not."

Michelle wants to argue, wants to say _yes you are_ but she knows that it will be futile so she just takes another sip of her tea, warm and sweet and savory and somewhat fruity. "Thank you." She says again, quietly, voice soft and light, but she knows that he's heard it because he stares at her like she's breaking his heart.

"I've already said that you don't need to thank me." Peter answers quietly, tilting his head to the side as though he's puzzled by why she doesn't agree with his strange philosophies. "We're friends."

Michelle bites the inside of her lips, because she knows that there are so many friends who wouldn't go so far for each other, she knows thousands of people who would never do what Peter is doing for her, but she doesn't say this because Peter is good and kind and dear and he doesn't quite seem to understand the darkness in the world or how much better than everyone else he seems.

"Mind if I draw you?" She asks instead, changing the subject because she knows that if she pursues it then Peter will just keep insisting like an idiot that it's 'what friends do' and push her until she believes that it's no big deal, too, which will never happen, so it'll just be a loop of him being too kind for her and her trying to tell him that it's not like that for eternity.

His face lights up, and he quickly nods. "Yeah! Of course! Wait, well, you already sketched me in detention, so, well. But you can do it again."

"That was just a cartoonish doodle." Michelle answers dismissively. "If I try to draw you realistically, it could take a long time."

"How long?" Peter asks, tilting his head to the side. "Not that I'm busy or anything, I'm not, I swear, I just, how much time?"

Michelle's face falls, and she wills her expression to stay blank but her face won't do it, and her features crumple. "Peter, if you've got somewhere to be, you can't just stay with me. Go do what you have to."

" _No_." Peter snaps, leveling her with a hard stare. "Michelle, I don't have anything better to do than be here with you right now."

The worst part?

He believes it. He thinks that it's true, thinks that wasting his time with Michelle (of all people. Not even Ned or Liz or someone good like him, _Michelle_ , who's a bag of shit) is something valuable and worthwhile.

Michelle both hates him and loves him for it. "Peter." She says firmly, willing her voice not to shake, and miraculously, it doesn't. "What else do you have to do?"

" _Nothing_." Peter insists.

" _Peter_." Michelle raises her eyebrows.

"I'm telling the truth." Peter says, and pulls out a pencil from her bag, setting it firmly on the table. "Look, my Aunt May's not home until 12 because she's working extra hours. I can stay out for as long as you need, okay? I have nothing better to do, so if you're okay with that, let me stay with you."

He says it like spending time with Michelle is a gift from her to him, like it's something that he wants but doesn't know if Michelle is willing to give him.

She wants to cry all over again. "Please stay." She whispers, and maybe it's selfish and stupid and dumb and she knows this will probably hurt Peter in the long run but his face lights up and he beams like she's something worthwhile and she just.

It's selfish, she knows, but she just wants to be with him a little while longer.

 _Just a little while longer._


	8. Chapter 8

**Reply to SugarPhoenix(Guest):** Thanks!

* * *

Michelle does this. This thing. Where she talks. Then she doesn't. She talks and she just. She falters.

She pauses, and waits, stares at Peter like she honestly expects him to have stopped listening by now.

When he tells her to keep talking this expression full of surprise flickers across her features, like it's a surprise, like it's a gift that he's giving her or something.

Peter hates it.

They're sitting in a little corner of Michelle's house, drinking tea and talking while Michelle draws.

Or rather, they were. Michelle had long since abandoned drawing in stead of talking to Peter, animatedly waving her hands in wide, swooping gestures to help get her point across, laughing occasionally as Peter responded.

Then, mid way, she just _shut down_.

Mouth stopped and voice faltered as she rubbed the back of her neck and laughed sheepishly, saying softly, "I guess that I got a little carried away, huh?"

Peter glanced at the time and shook his head, smiling encouragingly at her as he prodded her, "Nah, we've got tons of time! Keep going."

"It's uh," She ran her fingers along the edge of her sleeve, eyes lowering as she looked back down at her sketchbook. "It's kind of boring anyways. Why don't you talk for a while?"

Frowning, Peter crawled forwards to sit a bit closer to Michelle. "What's wrong with what you were saying?" He demanded, slightly insulted. "I thought that it was really cool and interesting."

"It's, it's not that cool." Michelle turned bright red. "Sorry, I just got a little excited and..."

"What's wrong with being excited?" Peter demanded, voice hardening as his fingers curled into fists. "You were doing fantastic! You were doing great, and I can tell that you were excited by what you were talking about, so keep talking!"

Michelle shook her head and lowered her chin to her collarbones. "If you're not interested..."

"I'm _interested_ , Michelle..."

"You don't have to say that to make me feel better..."

" _Michelle_." Frowning when she flinched at his harsh tone, Peter held out a hand and asked in a subdued tone, "Can I hold your hand?"

Michelle nodded mutely, and Peter unfurled his fist to wrap his fingers around hers.

"Michelle," Peter repeated, voice much softer than before, "Why don't you think that I'm interested in what you're talking about when I clearly am?"

Michelle curled her fingers around his hand and rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. "Are you?" She asked quietly, tipping her head further down to stare at their hands. "Most people aren't interested in that kind of stuff, and I know that you're not really into English and..."

"I am." Peter cut her off with a scowl. "I'm interested, alright, Michelle? Who told you that they weren't interested?"

Michelle shrugged.

"It's interesting." Peter's voice was rising, furious and harsh, "You're amazing and brilliant and I love it when you get excited about things. Don't you _dare_ let people tell you that it's not exciting. Watching you be excited makes me excited too, and I love hearing you talk. Do you get that, Michelle?"

Michelle looked like she wanted to cry. "If I tell you yes, will you shut up?" She had meant to sound teasing, but her voice came out crackly and as broken up as potato chips.

Peter lowered his head and closed his eyes. "If I shut up, will you talk to me some more?" He asked quietly.

Michelle raised her head to meet his eyes, and then let out a small noise that sounded like something between a laugh and a scoff. "I don't think that I can talk without crying right now." She admitted, raising her free hand to wipe her eyes. "Your voice got loud."

"Sorry," Peter shrank back, chagrined.

" _No_ , it's not," Michelle frowned, frustrated when her voice cracked in the middle. "It's not your fault, Peter. You're amazing."

"I made you cry."

Michelle rolled her eyes, which was a bit difficult when she was crying. "I made me cry."

Peter offered her a light, tentative laugh. "That makes no sense."

She punched him lightly. "Shut up." She answered, laughing and crying and not really understanding.

Peter stopped laughing to stare at her, stunned, a bright smile lighting his eyes. "You just laughed!" He exclaimed excitedly, clapping his hands like a toddler on Christmas.

Michelle stopped laughing to stare at him, equally stunned, before she laughed even harder. "I forgot how awesome this was." She choked out in between giggles. "To be happy."

Peter laughed right back and squeezed her hand. "You'll never forget again." He promised.


	9. Chapter 9

**Reply to Punzie the Platypus:** Thanks!  
 **Reply to Animalover48** **:** *pats head* Sorry, you're delusional. No, but actually, they're very close. I know a lot of people are conditioned to think that once a guy and a girl get close to each other, they have to date or something, but to me, Michelle will always be ace.

* * *

Michelle comes out of the therapist's office with a new bottle of pills in hand and a washed out, pale expression on her features.

It's so unlike the soft but content Michelle that she's beginning to grow to be that Peter wants to grab her and hold her and demand what's wrong.

And because he has absolutely no self control, he ends up doing exactly that.

"Nothing," Michelle answered, her voice muffled in his ears as she buried her face in his shoulder. "Everything. I dunno. Can we just. Not talk? For a while?"

"Yeah, of course," Peter quickly answered, pulling her hand into his and smiling brightly at her as he swung their arms from side to side and bit his tongue. _Stay quiet for a while,_ he reminded himself, pulling back the urge to fill the silence with chatter.

After a brief moment of silence, Michelle closes her eyes and squeezes Peter's hand. "Spider-man's been seen less lately," She comments, voice weary and tired but still as sharp and smart as ever. "Kind of makes you wonder whats up, hm?"

Peter gulped, and his eyes flickered between her and the ground, nervously watching her then watching his feet, unsure of what to do. "I, uh, yeah, Spider-man's been, uh, less there but he's still, um..."

"What's up, Peter?" Michelle cut him off, halting their walk and stopping, her hand falling away from Peter's and back to clutching her bottle of pills as she stared at him, eyes sharp and knowing. "Why have you been wasting your time with me instead of going out and doing what you want to do?"

Peter frowned at her, fingers fiddling ever so slightly with his web shooters before he mumbled, "I _am_ doing what I want."

"You want to be Spider-man."

"I want to be your friend."

Demanding. "Why?"

Confused. "Why not?"

Eye roll. "I'm not worth this, Peter."

Scowl. "Who says?"

Snarl. "You know that I'm not."

 _Snap_. "You should know that you are!"

Michelle shook her head, hair flying as she demanded, "But what if I'm _not,_ Peter? What if you're just deluding yourself into believing that I'm worth something when I'm so clearly not? Is this some kind of hero complex? Do you think you need to save me or whatever? Because you _don't_. Go and jump of a building or something, do whatever _you_ want, I'm not worth all the time you're wasting."

"It's not a waste of time, Michelle, it's spending time with someone that's important to me, did you think for a minute that maybe I _enjoy_ spending time with you and that I'm choosing to spend time with you because I like being with you, not out of some stupid obligation?"

"Well forgive me if I don't believe you..."

" _You're forgiven!_ "

"...but you've got better things to do than hang out with someone like me!"

"What do you mean, someone like you, _you_ are an amazing friend that I enjoy..."

"Yeah, _right_..."

"...spending time with, will you stop interrupting..."

"...you and I both know that I'm not worth..."

"... _you're_ worth everything and..."

"...pretty words don't solve..."

" _Stop,_ Michelle!" Peter cut her off with a swipe of his hand. "If I spend time with Ned or May, is it wasting time?" She opened her mouth to reply with a shake of her head, but he didn't allow her to speak, blazing on, "No, it's _not_ , and you know it's not, so why don't you _understand_ that it's the same with you?"

"Because it's _not_!" Michelle snarled. "Because I yell and swear at you and call you names and I make you feel bad and I cry and I'm no fun to be around but they make you happy!"

" _You_ make me happy, too, Michelle!"

"Then you're insane!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Pause.

"So, what do you think about a movie marathon?"

"Sounds perfect."


	10. Chapter 10

**Reply to Animalover48:** Thanks!

* * *

Michelle's therapist was a short, lovely lady with pale pink hair and a paint smudge across her nose by the name of Ida.

"You haven't relapsed in three months," Ida noted while Michelle sketched out a picture of Ida eating a bagel. "You're doing a lot better than before."

Michelle's fingers twitched, and she almost wanted to lie and say _it was easy_ , but this was Ida, who had seen her break down, and who had reminded her that she had to be brutally honest if they were to help Michelle get better. "I hate it," She muttered, sketch lines turning a bit harsher than necessary. "I can't chop vegetables without thinking _what if_..." She lowered her eyes, eyelashes fluttering down as she said quietly, "I could pass it off as an accident. Say that I was clumsy. And my parents might suspect, but they would hope, and the hope would keep them in the dark."

"Have you relapsed without anyone knowing?" Ida asked quietly, fingers rising to begin braiding her hair. It was, Michelle thought at first, a nervous tick, but now she found that it was just a good distraction, something for Ida to do on the side and for Michelle to watch without getting too stressed.

"If I did, would I tell you?" Michelle answered, wanting to make her voice light but it ending up just being sharp and demanding.

"I should hope," Ida answered, voice deceptively light as she untangled the braid. Loose strands of hair fell down and curled over her ear, Michelle watching as wisps of bubblegum pink floated above Ida's head. "But in the end, it's not about me, it's about you."

Michelle slouched further into her chair as she added a few wisps of flyaway hair to her drawing of Ida. "I didn't relapse." She finally settled on saying, trying not to sound like a liar. (She was telling the truth, but Ida didn't know that, and it was Ida's job to double check.)

Ida hummed thoughtfully, and then she said, "I could count your arms, but you're too smart for that, aren't you? If you wanted it to stay hidden, you'd put it somewhere that we wouldn't look."

"I'm telling the truth." Michelle answered quietly, snapping her rubber bands again. "You know that I am."

"I never know anything," Ida answered with a sigh, mimicking Michelle's slouch as she stretched out her arms on the armrests of the chair. "But I'll choose to give you the benefit of the doubt."

Michelle dipped her head into a nod, thankful, and then she admitted, "Sometimes, I feel like as soon as I say that I won't do it anymore, I'll jinx it. That I'll feel proud that I'm not doing it anymore, and then the next day something will happen and I'll be bleeding out before I know it. I don't want to relapse, but I'm worried that the second that I become proud that I'm not doing it, I'll do it."

Ida brushed a piece of hair from her shirt and stared up at Michelle, intense and knowing. "You're allowed to be proud of yourself, Michelle." Her voice was as firm as rock. "You _should_ to be proud of yourself."

Michelle wanted nothing more than to curl up into a little ball and roll away, pretending that nothing was happening and the world had stopped. But the session had ten more minutes to go, and she knew that she couldn't.

"I know," Michelle answered in a small voice, doubtful and tiny and a lie that she hadn't even bothered to properly cover.

"No, you don't," Ida's voice was as soft as a feather. "You've gone three months trying so hard, Michelle. You've gone and made a new best record for yourself, you're doing _amazing_. You've gone almost one hundred days without cutting, and that's _brilliant_. I'm incredibly proud of you. Your parents are incredibly proud of you. You're doing a fantastic job, and that's great."

Michelle shoved her hands into her pockets. "What if I slip up?" She challenged Ida, jutting out her chin and trying not to cry, sketchbook long forgotten. "What if I mess up again and disappoint all of you? Then I won't be proud, will I?"

"Depression is a mental illness, Michelle," Ida's voice stayed quiet, calm and cool. "If you slip up, it's not your fault."

"Mind over body." Michelle argued angrily, pulling her hands out of her pockets to wave them in the air. "I control my own actions, I alone am responsible. We choose how to react."

"And you've worked really hard for the past three months." Ida agreed to placate Michelle, "So even if you relapse, we know that you worked hard. It's like this, if you exercise every day for three months, and then choose to eat chips and watch TV and not exercise one day, does that make your three months of exercising pointless?"

Michelle chewed on the inside of her cheek, and then sighed in defeat, mumbling, "No."

"Then should you be proud for exercising daily for three months?"

"You slipped up."

"You worked hard, and it was just a mistake that you'll work harder afterwards to avoid, right?"

"...Right."

"So you should be proud of yourself, right?"

Michelle sighed, and reached into her pockets to finger the bottle of antidepressants inside of it. "I'll do my best and work on it, Ida."

Ida offered Michelle a soft, proud smile, and answered kindly, "That's more than enough."

 _Was it truly enough?_

Michelle wondered.


	11. Chapter 11

Michelle's dad thinks that therapy is a waste of money, and he doesn't bother doing anything to hide his opinion.

If anything, he does the opposite, actively trying to convince Michelle and her mom that it's just Michelle being stupid and that therapy is a waste of money.

"She's just being a drama queen," He tells her mom dismissively, rolling his eyes at Michelle. "It's not like anything's seriously wrong with her."

Michelle thinks about the little notebook in her drawer, listing _Reasons to Not Commit Suicide_ and mentally ticks off _it'll make dad sad_. He probably wouldn't care even if she died, she thinks bitterly to herself.

"She's been _self harming_!" Her mom snaps, and Michelle tries to remember a time where her parents _weren't_ fighting over her, and can vaguely trace it back to a time long before this whole mess started. "Do you seriously think that's not a big deal?"

"She just wants attention." Her dad answers tightly, "And you're just making it worse by wasting all this money on therapy or whatever."

Michelle's mom starts arguing and her dad snaps back, their voices steadily rising over each other as Michelle stares at her hands and tries to be invisible.

She wants to scream _fuck off, dad_ or to hug her mom and cry, she's not sure which, but most of all she just wishes that this wasn't happening and her life wasn't such a mess. "I'm going out." She says quietly, and her dad turns to her and snaps a few choice words about how she needs to grow up and stop pulling these ridiculous acts for attention while her mother snarls a few choice words at her father.

Michelle pulls on the little rubber band on her wrist, lets it fall, and tries to breathe as she steps out the door.

In her rush to get away, she's sort of forgotten to bring her sketchbook... or any book, really, and Michelle's tempted to go to the library but she's forgotten her library card and she knows that her parents would know to look for her there.

She stuffs her hands into her pockets and wonders how Peter would react if she showed up on his doorstep.

 _No_ , she closes her eyes and takes in another deep breath, in and out, slow and shaky, _I can't do that_.

If not that, what else? She doesn't have money. She has a feeling that if she goes to the library, she'll just want to rip up all of the books.

Somehow, Michelle's feet find their way to Peter's apartment and she just sort of stands there dumbly, thinking, _this was stupid, he's busy_ and wishing that she had the guts to knock on the door.

Eventually, the door opens, and out pops Peter's Aunt May, who nearly bumps into Michelle and is quick to backpedal.

"Oh, Michelle," May sweeps a piece of hair from her eyes and smiles sweetly. "Peter's not home right now, but if you'd like, you can wait in the living room. He should be home soon, and we have a few books to keep you occupied."

"Oh, that's alright," Michelle tries to smile, but she doesn't really know if she manages to do it. "I'll just go, then, and..."

"Nonsense!" May's voice is brisk and strong as she pulls Michelle into the apartment and before she knows it there's a cup of tea in her hands and a book by her lap. "You need a place to stay, right?"

Michelle really wants to smile, to laugh and brush it off and pretend that nothing's wrong, nah, she just wanted to see if Peter wanted to go to the mall is all, but there's something in May's eyes, deep and soft and accepting and Michelle just ends up crying as she tries to sip her tea but her lips tremble a bit too much for that.

May doesn't say anything, doesn't have to, just reaches out and holds Michelle's hand, firm and warm and kind.

She understands where Peter's kindness comes from, now.

And that's how Peter finds then when he gets home, Michelle's empty cup of tea on the table, her head on May's shoulder, fast asleep as May quietly reads _The Goose Girl_.

* * *

 **A/N:** This chapter's all over the place. I'm sorry.


	12. Chapter 12

**Reply to Animalover48:** Thanks! Are you ever planning on getting an account so I can PM you?

* * *

Michelle finds out about Peter, ironically enough, when some thugs attempt to mug her.

It's a sad sight, honestly, them all blustering and trying to appear more macho than they really are, and it's all Michelle can do not to make some insulting quip, because she's kind of fearful for her life through the mocking sarcasm ringing in her head.

Luckily for her, as Spider-man pops in, he's able to mock them for her. "Going for the over-the-top act?" He asked dryly as he smashed one of the muggers in the face. "Because to be honest, it's a bit dull. _Totally_ not intimidating. I mean, if you want to hear intimidating..." A high pitched giggle that is just _so_ Peter, "Karen, turn on Interrogation Mode." Then his voice goes low and deep, and he snarls, "Turn yourselves in if you know what's good for you."

And it's all Michelle can do not to burst into laughter.

Because this is just... this is just so utterly ridiculous, she can't even.

It's just so.

The muggers scream and swear to stay away from then on, keep their noses clean, and Spider-man webs them up before calling the cops, and Michelle just about bursts a gut laughing.

Under the mask, Peter is, she's sure, very offended, and slightly confused, which just make the whole thing even funnier.

"You sound _ridiculous_!" She gasps, doubled over and nursing a cramp from laughing too hard. "Interrogation Mode, _really_? Of all the stupid things to have."

"Iron Man installed it in my suit." Peter is trying very hard not to seem offended, she's sure, but he ends up sounding so anyways and she just laughs even harder at the mild hero worship in his voice. "It's supposed to be useful." He turns to the muggers, sounding like a kicked puppy dog as he asks, "Hey, guys, I'm scary, right?"

They're quick to bob their heads into nods, quickly stuttering, "Yeah, man, you're scary."

"You just beat them up," Michelle points out when she straightens and somehow manages to get herself to the point where she's only giggling every once in a while. "Of course they'll think you're scary."

"I'm _terrifying_!" Peter protests, and Michelle just starts giggling all over again.

"Yeah, right, you are." Michelle answers in what's supposed to be the epitome of dry wit and perfected sarcasm, but she's laughing too hard to sound anything but amused. "What's next, you're secretly Bruce Wayne?"

Peter crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. "I _could_ be." He's totally pouting under that mask. She can imagine it now.

"Pft. Yeah, right, you dork." Michelle rolls her eyes and flicks her wrists, tossing him a rubber band. "See you tomorrow."

"You don't even know who I am..."

Michelle raises an eyebrow and gives Peter A Look, drawing forth her inner Aunt May in the most terrifying way she knows possible.

Peter gives in quite quickly. "Purple?" He asks quietly, confusion lacing his tone.

"Blue and red make purple," She explains, and pats him on the shoulder as she steps out of the alley. "Don't die, loser."

"I won't!" He calls back.

He doesn't die.


	13. Chapter 13

He takes her out on things that May claims are akin to dates, but they are quick to reassure her are simply outings.

He as in Peter, and her as in Michelle.

Sometimes they'll hop on a bus, offer the driver some cash and just hope that they don't end up somewhere boring. They end up somewhere strange and new, and they explore until they know the place inside out, and by the time that the year ends they both bet that they'll know New York inside out. It is, after all, their city, and Peter's especially.

Michelle might bring a cup of tea, and Peter will get something extra sweet that will make him even _more_ hyper than usual (if it somehow manages to work past his insane metabolism, that is), and they'll try to pretend they're normal even when they step into allies and save people from some crime.

Peter, Michelle learns, is loud and brash and stupid at the best of times, but when he saves someone, he'll be soft and kind and sweet as he gently asks, _are you okay, do you want me to stay_ and only touches them if they've given express permission.

After these times, when he finally pulls away from the victim and police arrive, he'll smile gently at her and she might hold his hand and they'll both take a moment to just realize how grateful they are for each other's company.

Then they'll pull away, like rain from the sky, and go back to excitedly bouncing everywhere and pointing out everything and anything.

"Want to go on an adventure?" Peter asks her, eyes sparkling and lips spread into a wide, crooked smile.

Michelle rolls her eyes as he dangles his legs over the edge of her windowsill and grins at her from under his hoodie. "I don't have money," She answers, a challenge, raising her eyebrows as she leans onto her elbows and shoves her head out the window.

Peter, the geek, instantly starts singing, "I ain't got cash, but I've got you, baby. Baby, I don't need dollar bills to have fun tonight..."

Michelle can't help but grin, one edge of her lips quirking up as she asks, "Sia, _really_? A bit lame, don't you think?"

Peter has the audacity to look _insulted_ at her words. "Sia is _queen_." He proclaims, crossing his hands over his chest and trying to look insulted but mainly just looking ridiculous, with his stuck out lower hip and the shadow of his hood falling over his eyes.

Michelle tells him as much, laughing as she flips off his hood and grins at him, "You look stupid."

Peter rolls his eyes and echoes her laugh, bright and cheerful and content to just be with her as he pulls his hood back on and answers mockingly, "So you have no response but to degrade my appearance? Tsk, tsk, Michelle, and here I was, thinking that you were better at insulting people."

They laugh at each other, no real reason to, but doing it anyways. "So, an adventure, hm?" She purrs, leaning forwards on her elbows and breathing in the fresh air. "What were you planning?"


	14. Chapter 14

They bounce onto the subway and Peter pays for the two of them, promising Michelle that she can pay for the next outing if she insists.

She does.

"There's an art festival a few blocks from here," Peter explains, a bright grin lighting his eyes as he moves his arms wildly to try to get his meaning across. "And I know that you like art, so I thought that maybe you'd like to..."

"I'd love to," Michelle grins at him and hangs on tight to the pole in the middle of their ride. "You know, I had a booth at an art festival once."

Peter blinks owlishly at her, "Seriously? That's _amazing_ , Michelle! Whoa! Did you sell stuff?"

She laughs a bit at his excitement and nods her head. "I sold a piece for a hundred bucks. Pretty good money."

Peter looks so incredibly impressed that she has to shove him a bit to get him back to earth. He shakes himself a bit, then smiles brightly at her. "Would you do it again?" He asks, and she thinks about it for a while, before crinkling her nose and shaking her head.

"You have to sit for _hours_ ," She sighs, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. "And you can't read, because people are constantly asking you questions and stuff so you keep getting interrupted."

"Hm," Peter hums thoughtfully, and she can tell by the look on his face that he's thinking about it, so she nudges him again.

"Whatever you're thinking about, _stop_." She rolls her eyes at him and he grins back, unrepentant.

"Nothing!" He says innocently, holding up his hands, but Michelle can still catch that crooked little lift to the corner of his mouth that he gets when he thinks he's getting away with lying (he _so_ isn't) and the way that his eyes sparkle is enough of a sign that he's teasing her. "I'm thinking about nothing!"

"Yeah, right," Michelle snorts and pokes Peter on the forehead. "That big brain of your's never stops working, you dork."

Peter laughs at her, and she laughs at him, both of them light and free and somehow right.

It's an insane feeling that makes Michelle feel very strange, but it's there, nonetheless.

More than there, she likes it a lot, and she'd much prefer it to the nights she's spent crying and breaking down.

(She wonders, a bit awed, if this is what mentally healthy people get to feel.)


	15. Chapter 15

Michelle doesn't know how this happens, but somehow she finds herself on the floor of her bathroom as she watches her bleeding wrist drip into the bathtub, oddly disconnected as she watches the bits of red roll down the drain.

For a while, she just watches it drip, listening to it with a detached kind of numb relief, grateful for the pain grounding her and grateful to have something to pull her from her thoughts.

Then instantly, full force, self loathing slams into her like a train, and she recalls Ida's voice saying _three months_.

She hates herself and wishes she didn't do it.

She washes it, using their more painful disinfectant and trying to tell herself that it's to help herself (but she knows that she doesn't want this pain to go away, doesn't want this thing holding her to the ground to fly away for fear that she'll float away and go back to that awful overwhelming darkness), then bandages it up and washes up the blood and the knife, bouncing down the steps and pasting a cheerful smile onto her lips as she brightly tells her mom that she's going out, and yeah, she feels fantastic, thanks, and you?

 _Liar, liar, liar_ , her head sings.

 _She won't understand_ , she snaps back at it as she closes the door gently behind her, careful not to do anything that will make her mom suspect what just happened.

As soon as she's out of the house, she wonders what the point of this was.

Wonders where she should go.

She can't go to Peter, she thinks to herself. She's feeling unstable and weird and a bit broken and she can't make Peter deal with that, not when he seems to like the cheerful and happy and laughing Michelle that he thinks she's become.

He doesn't like this Michelle, this angry and broken and weird Michelle that he can't understand and does nothing but hurt him.

She can't go to Ned either, she thinks, closing her eyes.

Does she have much other places to go?

Michelle pulls a wad of cash from her pocket and stares at it for a long time before she remembers that she's saving it for her next outing with Peter.

Hm. When did Peter become so involved in her life?

That's not good, she thinks, to only have one close link.

She could always go to Ida's, Michelle thinks, but as soon as Ida knows, her parents will know, too, and she's not quite prepared for that. She's just escaped it, listening to her mom cry at night and her dad glower at his boots as though he knows that she's just faking it.

Sometimes, insanely enough, Michelle thinks that she's just faking it. That it's not so bad, and she's just being a drama queen, and she's just making her depression all up and she's just cutting herself to keep up her act.

Which is, Ida says, normal. Stupid, completely not true, and totally insane. But normal. Apparently.

Then Ida handed Michelle her pills and reminded her that it was totally real.

She stares at the bandage on her wrist and pulls down her sleeve before she keeps walking.

Where to, she doesn't know.

* * *

 **A/N:** I did a thing.


	16. Chapter 16

**Warning:** Swearing.

* * *

The next few nights are sleepless.

She walks about in a daze, smiling cheerfully when Ned and Peter talk to her, and trying to pretend she isn't yawning at Decathalon as she takes little naps in between classes.

Nobody comments on her lack of sleep or the dark bags under her eyes, so she assumes that nobody notices.

Which. She thinks she's grateful for?

But she's just too tired to feel, and a bit too numb to do anything.

She used to look forwards to sleeping. She used to wake up in the morning and drag herself through the day, from the moment she woke up, she would think _I can't wait to get back into bed_ and that was what she looked forwards to.

Now, she doesn't even get that.

Now, she's terrified of nightmares and the fear that keeps her heart pounding or makes her cry for hours on end after she wakes up, so she stays up as late as she can until she physically can't keep her eyes open anymore, then she fights a bit more before she turns of the light and slumps onto her pillow, praying for a dreamless sleep.

She wishes... Well, no.

She doesn't wish anything. She can't, really. She's too tired to.

Lately, she's been too tired to do anything. She's slipping, she thinks groggily as she catches herself having a blank memory of an entire lesson, only coming to when the bell rang and realized the lesson was over.

The only thing that she can really feel anymore through the dazed weariness that chases her is when she cuts, and she hates herself for it, but part of her thinks... no, all of her _knows_... that feeling hatred for herself is better than feeling nothing at all.

She's so sick of feeling numb, so sick of feeling like she's dreaming even when she's awake, she hates the way that she'll suddenly tense up even when nothings happening, hates that she thinks of all the ways she could die as soon as she takes a step into a classroom, hates so much.

There's so much she hates, and she tries to tell herself that hating is better than the numb emptiness that's drowning her, but she's terrified that one day she'll just snap and hate the world so much that she'll hurt someone, like Ned, or Peter.

(She thinks of swearing at Ned, thinks about his mumbled _sorry_ and Peter's scared smile, and she has to list out loud the reasons to stay alive.)

"Peter will cry," She tells herself, clenching her teeth as she watches her blood drip down the sink. "Mom will cry. Dad might cry."

(She doesn't know. She thinks he will, but Michelle honestly doesn't know.)

"Ned won't understand. Sunsets. Ice cream. Puppies. Sarcastic comments that make people say _buuurn_."

She wants to laugh at that, light and hysterical, but she can't summon the energy so she just keeps watching the blood drip down the sink and keeps reciting reasons.

"New books. Old books. The smell of a library. Stargazing. Traveling the world. It'll get better. Maybe. I dunno. Fuck."

She hates all this. She thinks that she wouldn't care if she could just end it all.

She imagines herself as a corpse, buried under dirt, and shudders.

 _No. Gotta stay alive._

She closes her eyes and keeps thinking of reasons, saying them out loud and hoping, desperately wishing, that it were true, that it'll get better.

 _It will._ Her minds says.

 _Hah!_ Her mind scoffs.

She disinfects the wound and starts to cry.

 _I'm so fucked up._


	17. Chapter 17

**Warning:** Swearing.

* * *

Her teachers have started putting pressure on her.

Michelle knows what's happening. She knows that her grades are dropping, that she's not doing so good, that she should be smarter, that she should be better, but she just feels wrung out and tired and dry and she's so _sick_ of being told that she needs to be better and work more.

She would usually say that it wasn't a bit deal, that she just would ignore the little people and say whatever to anything else, like really, who cared about what the teachers thought if she was doing what she wanted?

Except she had been dealing with suicidal thoughts for the last few weeks, she's dead tired, her arms are constantly bleeding (from multiple wounds, most of the time) and she is just _done_.

"Come on, Michelle, you can do better than this," A teacher sighs, rubbing his temples as he holds up her work. "You need to give more content and turn it in sooner."

And she would get it. Really, she would. If it weren't for the fact that she _met_ the minimum word count and she turned it in _exactly_ on the deadline and she was given an _A-_ on that particular project. Not only a grade that was higher than average, but she met the standards the teachers had given them.

"Fuck you!" She snarls as one more teacher comments on her work, having called her to stay after the bell rang. "I turned it in _exactly_ on time _and_ I met the word count! What more do you want?"

The teacher frowns at her and makes a comment on her language before continuing, "Michelle, other students write longer essays, and you used to turn yours in much sooner before."

"But I've _always_ been ahead of time! Other students always hand their essays in the deadline, and you never corner _them_ about it." Michelle points out, grounding her teeth. "I've always written short, and that's _fine_ , that's how I write!"

"Well maybe you should do what the other students do..."

"Oh, go have sex and get an STD?" Michelle sneers, "Or should I force myself to write longer and let the quality of my essays drop?"

"You know that's not..."

Michelle bares her teeth into a snarl and storms out of the room, ignoring the teacher's shouts to _get back here, young lady_. It's not like she'd let bias affect her grade. If it did, she'd just arrange a meeting with the principal and carefully lay out her evidence.

She doesn't manage to walk all the way home before she just runs into a convenience store and ducks into the bathroom there.

Three careful, shallow red slashes find their way onto her wrist and she stares at the smudged mirror as she bleeds out into the sink. There's so much rust, they probably wouldn't notice the blood even if she doesn't wash it. (She does, of course. She always does.)

She knows she shouldn't let it affect her.

 _Intellectually_ , she _knows_.

But her heart's still beating so fast and she's still angry and hot and full of fury at the unfairness of it all.

She's worked hard. She's done so much. So what if her essays are short, she's top of her class.

And all her fucking teachers do is put _more_ pressure on her.

"Flower crowns," she closes her eyes and starts listing her reasons to stay alive, "Peter. Mom." She ought to mention her dad, but she can't bring herself to. " _The Alchemist_. Decathlon. Chocolate. New sketchbooks. The smell of books. Blue ink."

She wishes things didn't get to her so easily.

Wishes she could just laugh and ignore it, like she did before.

But she's so sick and tired of this, and the next essay she turns in, she does it a week early.

The teacher doesn't notice her red rimmed eyes, doesn't know about the fresh scars under her sleeve, doesn't know anything about how Michelle stayed up all night and had an panic attack about how it might have been "too short".

Michelle wants to swear at the teacher, to drop the class, to give in an incredibly short essay _after_ the deadline just to rub it in the teacher's face.

But she's tired, and so sick of fighting.

* * *

 **A/N:** My own personal fuck you to all you fuckwads that think it's okay to put pressure to write longer and faster on somebody with depression.


	18. Chapter 18

**Warning:** Swearing

 **Reply to soup(Guest):** Aw, thank you. (Don't cut yourself, it sucks.)

* * *

It's not that she's _intentionally_ starving herself.

She isn't. Really.

She's just not hungry.

Michelle doesn't really get it. (Does she need to?) But even though she's still doing the same things she usually does in gym class, even though she hasn't really done anything to change her appetite so drastically, she just can't eat.

She looks at food and she wants to throw up, she puts it in her mouth and it's all she can do to swallow it.

She finishes what her parents put on her plate, nothing more and nothing less, then silently moves to the sink to wash it.

Her dad comments on it, then makes an implication to her having anorexia and Michelle just replies tiredly, _I know,_ until he shuts up, biting back the fury swelling in her chest that _that's not the case_.

 _The case, dad,_ she thinks angrily as she makes her way to her room, _is that I have depression, and I don't know why but my body doesn't want to have food put in it right now._ She doesn't care about how she looks, doesn't care what her body's like, she _cares_ that she's stopped using her anti-depressants for some stupid reason and she hasn't been feeling okay for a long time and her dad still doesn't _get it_.

But she never says that. How could she?

Her dad's never going to get her, her _mom_ , though she tries, doesn't get, it, nobody gets it and Michelle's just so _sick_ of having to deal with this shit of a life.

When the weekend comes, and her parents go around, fluttering to various meetings, either for work or purely social, Michelle just skips her meals.

It's not that she thinks, _oh, I won't eat today_ , it's just that she's not actively reminding herself, that she never quite feels _hungry_. Her body doesn't want food and when she tries, just pushing it down her throat takes too much effort, and she's just so sick of this, doesn't want to deal with this.

She gets snacks sometimes, little fruit cups or a piece of chocolate, but even then she can only have a few bites and then she's just so _full_ , so stuffed, and she doesn't understand, she _knows_ it's not healthy but Michelle can't find it in herself to care.

She hasn't cared about anything in a long time.

Michelle reads, she finds videos on Youtube, she goes through the motions, and if she accidentally misses dinner, then what difference does it make to her?

She's getting too tired to care, and so she does enough, just enough that everyone else thinks it's all fine, just enough that they might makes smart remarks but won't _suspect_ , and it's so laughably easy, so stupid even as she accidentally misses the time to take her pills and just shrugs. _Whatever._ She can take them in the next few hours, when it's time again.

And if she forgets again, whatever. She's tired. Too tired to deal with this.


	19. Chapter 19

Peter, of course, inevitably sees the scars.

Her sleeve hitches up and the band-aids are right there, a red line of blood swiped across white, and he grabs her hand and looks at her with such panic that Michelle almost thinks that something's wrong.

But nothing's wrong, not really, so when Peter says, "Michelle, you didn't relapse, did you?" with heartbreak in his voice and worry in the air, Michelle just shrugs him off with a wrinkle of her nose and lifts a shoulder into a half shrug.

"Bug off, loser," She replies tiredly, turning around as she readjusts her sleeve and the strap of her backpack.

"Wait," Peter stumbles forwards, and reaches out to hold her hand, warm, calloused fingers sliding easily into her palm as his brow furrows, "Michelle, talk to me. What's up? Are you okay?"

"Bug off," Michelle repeats, kind of wanting to yell, but she doesn't want to draw the attention and she can't muster the energy to, anyways.

" _Michelle_ ," Peter presses, and Michelle wants to turn, wants to grab him by the shoulders and just _shake_ him and just scream and yell and run but she can't, because this is Peter and she can't be angry at him, not when he's like this and not when she's like that. "Please talk to me."

Michelle's breath hitches and her throat feels tight and when she turns around to talk, her voice crackles like lightening, and she says, "I'm tired," in a childish, whiny voice, but Peter's face softens and he somehow understands because he just nods.

"Okay," He agrees, voice as soft as silk and he squeezes her hands and offers her a small, pale smile as he asks softly, "Wanna go out together after school?"

Michelle doesn't want to cry, she's sick of crying, so she presses a hand against her face and just sort of nods, knowing that if she tries to talk she'll just end up crying in the middle of school and go to class with red rimmed eyes and the whole thing will just be one big mess.

"Alright," Peter squeezes her hand again and begins to gently lead her down the hall, "I'll escort you to class, okay?" His voice is gentle and quiet and she just keeps bobbing her head into nods, like some sort of an idiot, and for some reason he's alright with that.

As soon as school's out, Michelle flees the room and races to Peter, breaths deep and chest dipping and rising easily.

He grins at her, and then pulls something out of his backpack, bright, blue and soft.

"A flower crown?" Michelle's forehead creases because she doesn't quite understand, but Peter's smile just widens and he puts it gently on her head. Michelle makes a face at him. "I look stupid," She mutters, but it feels kind of nice and soft on her head and it's light but heavy and grounds her and Peter just smiles wider at her, like he knows that she likes it.

"I got it during the lunch break," He says proudly, and she reaches up to touch one of the petals (cloth, it's fake, but it's still so soft and nice) and a thumb brushing against the middle (still soft as a cloud... well, what she had imagined clouds to be like back when she was young and stupid). "I thought it might look nice on you."

Michelle wrinkles her nose at him, and he makes a puppy dog face at her, hopeful and sweet and she can't help but offer him a tentative, unsure smile back, before she says quietly, "Thank you," and his smile widens, blinding and bright.

"I was thinking we could go to a cafe," He chatters lightly, still holding her hand and smiling at her like the idiot that he is. "And then we could get some overpriced tea or hot cocoa with little marshmallows and cute little cups and some little pastries and you can talk to me or sketch or we could just be quiet together, and I'll pay of course, so you can totally feel free to rob me blind or something and it'll be..."

Peter gives her a hopeful, kind little smile.

"It'll be fun," Michelle concludes quietly, pressing the side of her face against his shoulder and knowing that they probably look like a couple but not caring what the ants think. "Yeah. Okay."

And, for the first time in weeks, it is.


	20. Chapter 20

**Reply to soup(Guest):** Aw, thank you. Yeah, Peter and Michelle are adorable.

* * *

For a while, Michelle is alert. There's a worm crawling about in her stomach, gnawing on her ribcage and butterflies flapping about as she thinks that all eyes must be on her. That she's standing out, the flower crown is making her stand out, that she looks stupid and dumb and everyone is judging her.

Peter asks her what's wrong, knowing and simple and light, as though she could tell him so easily.

She shakes her head and says _nothing_ , and he gives her a look that _knows_ but no words come from his lips and Michelle thinks that must be a blessing but she doesn't know why she feels so unsteady when he does that.

They step from the school grounds and he looks at her and asks what's wrong again, smooth and easy and concerned.

"I feel dumb," She says and tries to describe how she feels, the butterflies in her stomach and how she feels light yet heavy and can feel everyone's eyes boring into her skin, knowing what a screw up she is.

"You look beautiful," Peter tells her, firm and so certain that Michelle thinks he might be telling the truth. "So if anyone's staring, it's because you're too pretty to look away from. But if the flower crown makes you feel self-conscious, you're allowed to take it off. I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do."

"I like it," Michelle decides.

Peter's blinding smile, she thinks, is worth being stared at.

(But he reassures her anyways, that nobody's looking, that he knows she feels like they're watching, but they aren't. Michelle believes him, intellectually, but the feeling coiled in her gut doesn't leave, as though no logic could reason with a force as powerful as emotion.)

They crawl their way into a little hole-in-the-way cafe, the flower crown still perched above Michelle's ears and Peter's fingers slipped into her's.

It's a bit crowded, with students filing in after a long day at school and business people pausing to take a late break from work.

"See all those people?" Peter squeezes her hands and flashes her that same bright, reassuring smile, "We're one of them. Do you remember that girl we passed, blond hair, red skirt?"

Michelle shakes her head.

"That's us," Peter promises her, "Nobody notices us, and nobody will remember us. As long as you want to be, you can be invisible."

It's stupid, how easily it works, but it does.

They slip into the crowd and Michelle imagines that she's invisible, she and Peter, as they slip through the crowd and weave their way through the world without a single footprint left behind.

It's lovely and comfortable, even as they do exactly as Peter predicted and get some overpriced tea, cold and sweet for Peter and warm and bitter for Michelle.

She's tempted to pull out her sketchbook, to shade in the lines of Peter's face, the way that his eyebrows draw together when he takes his first sip of the tea and the crease to his forehead and that little dip in his skin at the edge of his lips. She's tempted to draw the quaint little cafe, with its quiet music and loud chatter and the way that it makes you feel as though you were just a faceless person in a crowd, a passing breeze on a summer day. Unnoticeable and forgettable.

It's not a bad thing. Michelle likes this feeling, this feeling of being a ghost and hidden away and quiet.

But she'd like to enjoy this moment, silent and patient and simply allowing the world to go by.

One day, she'll be seen. She'll stand at the top of the world and shout at the top of her lungs and will blow the world away.

But for now, she's still a bit tired, and she likes this comfortable feeling that the world is separate from her, that she's a mouse in the wall and needs nothing but the warm hand in hers.

So she sips her tea and smiles at Peter and he smiles back and in that moment, all is right in the world.

* * *

 **A/N:** This chapter didn't make sense. Oops?


	21. Chapter 21

Michelle goes over to the Parker's on Christmas Eve, hair pulled back into a French braid and a hastily wrapped gift in hand.

"Sorry," she breathes, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, "I meant to come sooner, but it just came in this morning."

"No problem," Aunt May says, warm and sweet as she pulls Michelle in, "Now that you're here, why don't you stay a while?"

Michell flushes, pulling nervously on her braid, "Ah, no, I couldn't inconvenience..."

"Nonsense," Aunt May is quick to cut her off with a roll of the eyes. "You're practically family, at least do us the pleasure of staying over for a little bit."

"Are you sure that I wouldn't..."

Before Michelle finishes speaking, Aunt May has grabbed her hand and pulled her into the apartment, soundly shutting the door behind them, "We've just been debating what movie to watch," Aunt May notes, as though she hasn't just about dragged Michelle into her home, "Maybe you can help us decide?"

"Um..."

Aunt May shoots Michelle a pleading look.

Michelle shifts awkwardly, taking her braid in a hand and smoothing it over, eyes downcast as she smiles shyly and says softly, "Maybe... just long enough to help you decide?"

Aunt May beams, bright and knowing that she'll be able to change Michelle's mind.

" _Peter_!" She turns and hollers into the living room, "It's Michelle! She's going to pick Treasure Planet!"

There's a yelp, and the sound of something hitting wood (probably Peter's head), then Peter's head pops out through the door and he blinks owlishly at Michelle. She notices dimly that he's wearing a shirt with Cinderella on it that says _when you wish upon a star_ , and files it away for later blackmail purposes. "Waitasecond, Michelle?" He tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows, "What are you doing here?"

Michelle waves the package and raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, "Brought you a present, and your aunt decided to hold me hostage until I helped you decide what movie you're going to watch."

"She's going to pick Treasure Planet," May said smugly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Peter, seeming to forget any semblance of dignity, stuck out his tongue and shook his head. "Nuh-uh, she's going to pick Cinderella."

They both turned to Michelle, eyes wide and expectant.

"First of all, I have never even heard of Treasure Planet..."

She didn't get to continue because in a flailing of limbs Peter had yelled, "WE'RE WATCHING TREASURE PLANET!" and Aunt May had yelled "HA! SUCKER!" and they had both somehow dragged Michelle into the living room and had set her down on the couch, then started the movie.

Stunned, Michelle started, "Guys, I'm not going to stay for the mo-"

"Yes you are," Peter interrupted her, "You're going to stay, watch, and fall in love with the fantastic beauty that is Treasure Planet."

Michelle raised an eyebrow, "And here I was, thinking that you wanted to watch Cinderella."

"I do, but I don't really care either way. All the movies we own are awesome, and in the end, it's about spending time with the people that are important to you, right?"

Michelle honestly thinks she might cry, "You're a sap," she says instead.

Peter grins at her and throws a piece of popcorn at her face. "But you love me."

"Shut up, guys," Aunt May interrupted them, "And watch the movie."


	22. Chapter 22

Michelle, if asked, would say that she's doing great lately. She's been exercising in gym class, stretching before she goes to school, burying herself in school, reading a lot, practicing the flute for two hours a day, drawing a picture a day...

And okay, maybe she's not getting that much sleep, but sleep doesn't really matter that much, right?

It's fine. She's getting things done, she's being productive...

"You're driving yourself into the ground," Peter tells her as Michelle wakes up with the bell that lunch is finished. Somehow, her body has decided to fall asleep on Peter's shoulder.

"I'm fine," Michelle promises, hollow little words, but she's being _productive_ and that's what matters, right? (Regardless of the fresh little scars on her wrists, she'll be fine, she's getting things done, isn't that what's important?)

Peter gnaws on the inside of his lip and lowers his eyes, murmuring, "If you say so," in an unsure voice.

"I'm getting lots of stuff done," Michelle promises, and Peter squeezes her hand.

"But are you getting the _right_ stuff done?" He asks, and Michelle tosses her hair over the shoulder.

"I'm being productive," Michelle answers, "Come on, we'll be late to class."

Peter doesn't pry further, just slides on his backpack and dips his head into a nod, saying a quick, "If you ever want to hang out or talk, you know I'm here for you, right?"

"Of course," Michelle waves her hand, she's fine, it's fine.

* * *

Except, of course, it's not fine, because Michelle can't remember the last time she did something for fun instead of trying to hold back the anxious scream of, _aren't you going to_ do _something with your life all these other people are doing amazing things and you're just here in school doing nothing being stupid_ and she practices her flute and her grades remain exceptional in school and it helps a little but _you're still ordinary_ and that's bad, right?

It's almost midnight when Peter calls her, apologetically saying, "Michelle I, I need you. I'm sorry, please come, I can't, I don't know what to," his breath hitches.

Michelle rubs her eyes and yawns, "Are you injured?" she asks, already throwing on a jacket.

"No, there's this girl, she was going to jump and I don't know what to," Peter clears his throat awkwardly, "I'm really bad at this."

"Where are you?" Michelle sighs.

"Oh, you don't have to come, just over the phone..."

Michelle raises an eyebrow, despite knowing that Peter can't see her. "Then you'll swing her over to the rooftop of my apartment?"

"Um, I've never really web slung with a person on my back before and it'd rely on her being willing to hold on, and I'm afraid she'd let go, so..."

"Yeah," Michelle yawns again, "I thought so. Address?"

Peter rattles off the address of a nearby apartment building, and Michelle is there in less than ten minutes.

"Hey," the girl is around Michelle's age. It's disconcerting to see her and Peter as Spider-man, knowing that she might go to Michelle's school. "Um, I'm Michelle."

The girl rolls her eyes, "Are _you_ going to tell me not to jump, that I have a future or whatever?"

Spider-man winces, and Michelle groans, "You didn't."

"I didn't say _anything_ ," Peter is quick to defend himself, "I was kind of useless, to be honest."

"It's alright, Spidey," the girl patted his shoulder, "Just meeting you was kinda cool." She turns to Michelle and whispers, "he's a bit of a geek, isn't he?"

"The geekiest," Michelle whispers back, laughing when Peter grumbles _I can hear you_. "Anyways, jumping, eh? Not the route that I'd have chosen, but hey, pick your own poison."'

The girl eyes her suspiciously, and then asks, "What poison would you choose, then?"

Michelle takes off her jacket and examines her wrists, "I think you can guess."

"Oh," the girl says in a small voice, "You've..."

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?" Michelle runs her fingers through her hair, "Except it doesn't. Not in the sense that we think of. Veterans with PTSD, they're strong because, despite their PTSD, they can act almost normal." She eyes Peter, "But acting normal isn't strong. What's really strong is getting help from the people that are close to you. Doing stuff like getting _therapy_."

"I keep _telling_ you," Peter says, frustrated, "I can't get therapy because I can't reveal my identity."

"I want to argue with you, but you're not my priority right now," Michelle glares at him, and then turns back to the girl, "This will kill you. From this height," she peers over the rooftop, "It will kill you. And it won't just kill you. It will kill him," she points at Peter, "It'll kill _me_ ," she jabs her chest, "It'll kill anyone who has ever cared about you, your parents, your friends, your teachers, whoever knows your name, it will kill them, because if you know someone who has committed suicide it makes you question a fuckload of things that you didn't want to, and it makes you wonder what's the point of living, it makes you wonder so many stupid things."

The girl is silent for a moment, digesting the words, and then she asks, "Have you had someone close to you try and..."

Michelle shakes her head, and points at Peter, "He has, though." Peter ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck. "Me."

"So I shouldn't jump," the girl says slowly, "because it'll hurt other people?"

Michelle looks at Peter, "Tell her what you tell me every day."

Peter's mask creases and she can tell his forehead is wrinkling, then he crouches down and says, "To be honest, I don't quite understand it." He rubs the back of his head, "Dying, I mean. Like, people who jump just have one reason." He shakes his head, "One reason. There are so many reasons to live. Disney movies. A starry sky. Flower crowns. Getting perfect on a pop quiz in math, warm clothes fresh from laundry, John Green's books. And yet, people just need one reason to die and," he flicks out his fingers, "Suddenly all the reasons to live just vanish. I just don't," he looks down, "I can't understand it. I don't have any mental illness..."

Michelle clears her throat and glares.

"...Other than PTSD," Peter lowers his eyes, "But I just. There are so many reasons to live, just, you just need one reason to live, don't you?"

The silence in the air lays heavily, tense and thick.

Then the girl says, "I can't... I can't do that. There's just so much... school, piano, learning Chinese, I can't do anything else. It's like I'm suffocating, and my vision blurs over and," she shakes her head, "I don't want to kill myself. I just don't want to stay alive anymore, because if I stay alive that means that I have to keep moving, have to keep going and working and doing my best and I'm trying but it's all so..." she buries her face in her knees.

"You're not normal," Peter says. He stares at Michelle for a moment, then turns back to the girl and says, "Neurotypical people can do so many things, so easily," he presses a hand against the ceiling and Michelle knows that he's thinking of how easily a building falls, "And it's _hard_. I don' understand how they do it all, quite honestly."

The girl half smiles at that.

"You're not neurotypical," Peter plows on, "So don't try to act like you are. It's okay to have down days. Just... just take it one day at a time. Quite piano. Take breaks from Chinese. Drink hot chocolate, go to the local pet shelter and look at all the cute puppies instead. Living life, it's not about the future. It's not about graduating, it's not about when you're an adult, heck, it's not even about tomorrow. It's about now. Do what you need to do, yeah. But remember that it's okay to not be exceptional and extra and wild. Sometimes it's okay just to be happy."

The girl starts crying, "I'm mad at you," she says, voice cracking and barely coming out through hiccups. "I feel like you don't get it."

"You're communicating," Michelle observes awkwardly, "That's good."

"You're right," Peter agrees, "I don't get it. I don't get what it's like to live your entire life for the future, to forget about taking care of yourself _now_. I don't know what it's like, to not have someone remind you to eat or take a break or not to have someone drag you to a movie night despite you trying to learn German. I'm blessed to have amazing people in my life. But you... one day, you'll have that, too, I swear. Just stay alive that long and," he reaches out his hand, "I swear."

"Okay," The girl holds Peter's hand, "Fine. I won't jump." She frowns at Peter, "When does this time limit run out?"

"Um..." Peter's eyes flicker to Michelle.

"One year," Michelle answers resolutely, "One year and then you have a choice to either see who he is under the mask or to jump and not let him do anything."

"Um, I don't..."

"Alright," Her eyes burn, "I'll see you in a year?"

"Are we planning this, or..."

"You go to my school, right?" The girl nods at Michelle, "You're the captain of the smart people club. I'll find you at school."

"Okay." Michelle says.

"Okay," the girl says.

 _One day at a time._


	23. Chapter 23

**TW:** Meltdowns.

* * *

There's an itch in Michelle's bones, deep down somewhere, crawling beneath her skin, an urge to do something, anything, but everything that she does only helps to force up a well of deep dissatisfaction.

"What do I do?" She asks Peter, skin crawling and fists clenched. Scrapes of thin scabs have begun to drag against her knuckles, she accidentally punched a brick wall. (Accidentally as in she had been aiming for someone's head. It was a mugging, so she finds that it was justified.) "I hate it, it's so wrong and..."

She grunts, frustrated, and kicks at a nearby can of coke. It bounces away, and she just feels all the more useless for it.

"I don't know," Peter says, quietly, thoughtful, "Whenever I get an itch like that, I swing around on my webs, but obviously you can't do that, so..."

"Obviously," Michelle grounds out, too angry to allow Peter to finish his words.

Peter regards her with a sad kind of curiosity, as though he's thinking about how long it's been since the last time that Michelle acted like this and mourning his peace.

Michelle wants to scream at him, to tear her skin apart, but she knows that she can't, so she just shakes her head and they walk home together.

There's something about having off days, where you know that it's not but you still feel like your world is burning and you scribble down things on your to-do lists that you know for a fact you'll never do that burns inside your chest, smouldering and waiting to eat you alive from the inside.

Michelle scribbles stars on the backs of Peter's hands and braids her hair nervously and it all surmounts to nothing, nothing compared to the rising pressure of the volcano in her just waiting to almost wants to explode. Then, she thinks, it'd be over and done, but for now, she just simmers and waits for the inevitable necrosis of her emotions.

"I hate this!" She screams in an alleyway at 3 a.m, Peter watching over her silently, nonjudgemental and perfect.

She wants to throw something in his perfect, beautiful face, just to see if it'll make him bleed or if it'll just bounce back.

 _No_ , she thinks, skin crawling, _nonono, bad Michelle, badbadbad,_ and she slams her head against the wall.

"Whoa, whoa," and suddenly Peter's there, hand against the side of her head as Michelle screams at her feet, sobbing and _wrong_ and unsure of how to make anything right again.

"I can't!" She screams, the words ripping from her throat like a band-aid from a scab, "I can't, I can't, this isn't working, this is never going to work, I hate it, I hate it, I hate..." Michelle takes in a deep, shaking breath, and buries her face in her hands.

Peter is talking, she thinks, but his voice is distant and far away, too soft to be heard above her screaming.

 _Shut up, Michelle_ , she thinks, _why can't you just be normal, why can't you just take time to listen to Peter, why can't you, why, why, why..._

She's picking at her rubber bands, snapping them against her skin, over and over and over but she can't feel anything, her mind's too foggy and distant and she itches for a knife but she can't and it's just too _much_...

"I can't breathe," she reports, and Peter might swear, she doesn't really know, and then there's the faint babbling of his voice again, sounding as though they're underwater.

Then there are hands on either side of her face, and Peter presses his forehead against her's, "It's okay, it's okay," Peter murmurs, eyes closed, and she's not sure if he's talking to himself or her anymore, but this calms her down so she presses her forehead into his, too.

"Sorry," she whispers, voice cracking ever so slightly.

"Yeah, well," Peter seems to fold in on himself, pulling away from her and slipping back, forehead against his knees, "I think we needed that, yeah? Gotta let it all out somehow. And what better way than having a meltdown?"

"I can think of a few," Michelle jokes, lightly punching Peter's shoulder. "I... thanks."

"Yeah, well," Peter buries his face in her shoulder, "What kind of hero am I if I can't even help out with a meltdown?"

"One that's not perfect?" Michelle quirks up an almost-smile.

"Blasphemy!" Peter gasps, pressing a hand against his chest, but there's something weary about his smile, a little more faded than usual.

Michelle stares at him, taking in the curve of his lips and the faded street light illuminating the tip of his nose, "I'm probably going to skip school tomorrow," she confesses, "So don't get fussy when I don't show."

"Oh, well," Peter frowns at her, and then scratches the back of his head, seeming resigned to the knowledge that Michelle is an unstoppable force of nature, "Yeah, okay. Self-care days are important, yeah?"

"Yeah," Michelle hugs her knees to the chest, "See you eventually. Not tomorrow."

"Right," Peter nods, his nose sort of smooshing against Michelle's biceps, "See you eventually."

They sort of laugh, and then they both go home before they fall asleep in the alley like a bunch of drunks.


	24. Spiralling

There's a hackathon at their school.

It's called (perhaps unoriginally), MidtownHacks, and Michelle's looking forward to it.

There have been posters all around the school, baby blue with MIDTOWNHACKS in bubble letters. The graphic design is cool, and the posters draw her eye despite the millions of posters up on the walls, all screaming for attention.

She takes the time to read it in between her English and French class, methodically going over the information, eyes skimming, _check out our website for more information_ before researching while everyone else works on their essays.

Michelle, of course, finished early.

It's just a weekend thing, from Saturday afternoon to Sunday at seven, and that's the tentative schedule, but it sounds amazing. It's overnight at school and they'll have all sorts of workshops on soldering, creating code, and all sorts of things.

Michelle can feel her bones thrumming with a rare kind of excitement as she talks with Peter and Ned about it.

"It would be fun to learn something new," She notes, a slight smile on her lips as she tucks her chin onto her hands, and Peter and Ned shoot her surprised, but pleased smiles.

"Yeah, it sounds really cool," Peter taps at his phone, scrolling through the website. "They're even providing free meals."

"Seriously?" Ned raises his eyebrows, "But I thought that they were providing free shirts."

"Free shirts _and_ free meals," Peter grins, "They've got a lot of sponsors."

Michelle steals Peter's phone and scrolls through the website, nodding, "It's a win-win. They get to educate students, boost their company's name, _and_ scout out future employees."

"Clever," Ned says with something almost like envy in his voice. "I should have thought of that for my Unit 1 summative." He's been taking business classes lately, and Michelle's spent a lot of time talking with him about business strategies, their pros and cons.

"Incredible," Michelle agrees, "I'll see you losers there?"

"Gotta ask Aunt May," Peter snatches his phone back and tilts his head to the side, grinning that crooked grin of his, "But if she says yes, then I'm there."

Michelle gives up the phone without a fight and laughs, light and clear.

She's so excited.

* * *

"Well, sweetie," Michelle's mom brushes some hair from her face, an awkward smile on her lips, "Your father and I talked about this little event of yours, and we've agreed that it just seems a bit, well, pointless. Learning programming and that sort of stuff... well, you can just learn that anywhere, right? And your school's so nearby, it seems just a bit silly for you to stay there overnight. Besides, it's not really proper for a little girl anyway, so..."

"Oh," Michelle swallows down the pit in her throat, "Yeah. Alright, that's fine."

She forces a smile on her lips and shrugs. It feels unnatural on her face, the forced smile, more like a grimace, but her mother smiles back, so she must be doing it right.

"You understand, right?" Her mother asks, gentle and sweet.

"Yeah," No, no, she doesn't, "It's no big deal," It was, Michelle was finally getting out, Michelle was taking initiative, Michelle wanted something more to life than just staying in bed and waiting to die, couldn't her mother _see that_ "Love you."

"Love you," Her mother smiled, and Michelle pulls away, tucking her laptop under her arm as she vaguely wishes her mother a good night, the words coming out of her mouth in a distant sort of way, as though she's dreaming and not fully there.

She wants to cry so badly. There's a twist at the edge of her mouth, a lump in her throat, both waiting for her to cry, but she can't, not when her mom is right there, not when her mom can still see her.

Michelle shuts the door behind her when she reaches her room and for a brief, fleeting second, she thinks, _I could just die_.

And then she thinks, _nope, no, we just got out of thinking that, we are beyond this, we are better than this, snap out of it, Jones._

She changes slowly, methodically. Stays silent, limbs suddenly too tired to move quickly. Every motion feels like she's sludging through mud.

When she's done, she shuts the light and crumples by her bedside. Everything suddenly feels numb. Her fingers against her legs, her forehead against her knees, her chin on her chest, painfully aware and yet so distant.

She stays there, concentrating on her breath, trying to remember how to breathe, each lungful feeling like her last, breathing in through her nose has suddenly become a tedious chore.

Michelle thinks about texting Peter or calling him, but she can't, he's busy, her parents will hear, a million other reasons that aren't really reasons, just excuses.

* * *

"I can't go," Michelle says calmly, cooly.

"Oh," Peter's face falls, "Are you sure?"

Michelle shrugs and flips her page, even though she hasn't read a single word. "It wasn't a big deal anyway," she answers, ignoring the way that her throat burns, _liar, liar_.

* * *

Ned and Peter appear on Monday with baby blue shirts with a cool little logo and the event's name printed on the front. They have cool little stickers that they put on their laptops and nice little magnets for their lockers.

"Want a sticker?" Peter asks, sliding a sticker across the cafeteria table at her.

"Whatever," Michelle says.

She doesn't touch it.

Peter puts it back in his backpack, looking disappointed.

* * *

She avoids her parents like the plague.

Her conversations are clipped, civil.

Her parents are too busy working to notice.

* * *

"It was a big deal," Michelle confesses over tea. She curls her toes in her boots, shakes her head and scowls, "I know it shouldn't be, and it's stupid, and I should have just left it but it was... it was a big deal for me. I thought it would be cool, okay? I cared." Her voice takes on a bitter edge. "Look where that got me."

"I'm sorry," Peter says, and the words hang in the air, heavy with the weight of the world and light as a feather. They want to mean everything, but they don't mean anything at all.

"Yeah, well," Michelle laughs, tight and frustrated, "It's not your fault."

Peter lowers his eyes, and Michelle wishes that she were the type of girl that laughed easily. She could wipe that kicked puppy dog look off of his face.

"You should talk to your parents about it," Peter says, soft, uncertain. He's never had to deal with a parent that said no like that, never had to deal with parents that thought they knew better because May and Ben had always been open, had learned just as he grew.

"What's the point?" Michelle lifts her shoulders, rubbing them against the bottoms of her ears, "It's over. It's not happening until next year when I'll have stopped caring."

"But you did care, you do care, it's important, you shouldn't..."

"Whatever, Peter," Michelle stands up and walks away, leaving her tea behind.

It's rude.

She can't find it in herself to care.

* * *

She's spiralling.

It scares her.

Nothing scares her.

She's a bit lost.

* * *

"It wasn't the hackathon," her therapist says, giving Michelle a leather sketchbook, "It was the fact that you cared about something. You asked for something. You made yourself vulnerable, put yourself out there, and they said no."

"Fat lot of good that did me," Michelle sneers.

"It's good," her therapist says, "it's progress."

Michelle stares at the sketchbook, eyes burning into the pages, fresh and new. "I don't want progress. Not if it feels like this."

* * *

Some days, she thinks that it's better to feel nothing than to feel this ache in her chest, longing and hopeful and crushed all at the same time.

* * *

The sketchbook pages fill up. Ned. Houses on her street. The school. Peter. Flowers. Careful little sketches, careful little lines.

Michelle hates caring. It's stupid.

* * *

"Have you talked to your parents?" Peter asks.

Michelle doesn't respond.

Peter stares at her wrists, and Michelle doesn't have the energy to get angry.

* * *

"I'm spiralling," Michelle says.

"It will get better," her therapist says.

"Ha," Michelle laughs.

She spirals.

* * *

Michelle had forgotten, what this was like, days turning into weeks turning into a month then longer, feeling numb and pushing everything to a tomorrow that she wasn't sure would ever come.


	25. Chapter 25

Ned decides that he's had enough of Michelle locking herself in her room so he comes in and sits on the edge of her bed and offers her hot chocolate.

Once her guard is down and she's started to drink it, Ned asks, "When are you coming out?"

Michelle does a little thing where her fingers spasm and her lips tighten and she looks angry and she demands, "Why?"

"Because you're self destructing," Ned answers quietly, "And it's painful to watch."

Michelle stares at the hot chocolate and her knuckles turn white against the handle. "I'm fine," she bites out, cold and angry and eyes averted because she's a coward that can't face her future and a coward that lies and just overall a coward and she hates herself for it but what else can she say?

Ned doesn't snap _you're not_ like Peter does, doesn't purse his lips and walk away like her mom, instead he reaches out a hand and she curls her fingers into his and he asks softly, "And why do you think that?"

Michelle can't look him in the eyes, so she looks at his fingers instead, soft and pale and wide and with blunt fingertips, curling comfortably between the crevices of her's.

She has no proper answer, no Peter answer, bright and cheerful, so she sort of shrugs and summons the words to speak.

"I'm alive, aren't I?" Her brain feels numb, tongue heavy in her mouth, and she's horribly, terribly grateful for that, because she's not shouting at him, at least, she's not hurting him ( _yet_ , her brain reminds her, summoning images of anger and hurt and Ned staying silent, loving her as a friend all the same). "There's a lot to be thankful for."

He doesn't need to verbally prod her this time, stays silent and tilts his head at her, and that's enough to prompt Michelle to continue.

"Like... like the sun in the sky. Or a rainy day where you can dance. You and Peter. My family. The Alchemist. Flower crowns. And..." she fumbles a bit, "A lot more, y'know?"

"Do they make you happy?" Ned asks.

Michelle's chest is tight and her throat is dry and she squeaks out, "Most of the time..."

" _Do they make you happy_?" Ned pushes, refusing to allow Michelle to avoid the subject.

Michelle looks away, eyes burning and her grip tightens between Ned's fingers.

"What _will_ make you happy?" Ned asks quietly.

"I don't know," Michelle whispers.

"That's alright," Ned's answer is quick, prepared, as though he has already known Michelle's answer before she's given her, and he offers her a reassuring squeeze when she doesn't turn to look at him. "Have you been taking care of yourself lately?"

Michelle shrugs.

Ned doesn't scold her or immediately make plans, instead opting for a thoughtful expression and a light question, "What are you up for?"

Michelle shrugs again.

"That's okay," Ned smiles reassuringly at her, "Do you think that you're up for going outside today?"

Michelle looks outside and thinks of putting on a jacket and boots and changing from her pajamas and shakes her head.

"Good, you know your boundaries," Ned nods, "Do you think we can clean your room once you finish your hot chocolate?"

Michelle presses the pads of her fingers to the side of the cup, warm and grounding, and murmurs, "It's a lot."

"Understandable," Ned nods, "How about we just take your laundry to get washed? Is that too much?"

Michelle shakes her head, "I can do that," she says.

Ned beams, looking proud of her. "Awesomesauce!" He cheers.

It's ridiculous.

Taking down laundry is so small, so minute, it's barely a dent in the mess that's her uncleaned room, and yet Ned treats it like it's the most accomplished achievement in the world.

For a moment, Michelle feels a bit of anger, and she says to Ned, "It's not that big of a deal."

Ned blinks at her, "Of course it is," he says, wiggling his toes, "Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection."

"Mark Twain," Michelle murmurs, her stupid brain falling in place to recall the quote.

"Exactly," Ned grins at her, crooked but sweet and kind.

They take the laundry down, and once they've done that, Michelle feels up for putting her books away. Ned sweeps the floor and Michelle wipes the shelves and somehow they finish cleaning her room, one step at a time, and when they're done Ned high fives her and crows, _we did it all in only one day!_ and Michelle feels an odd sense of pride (but it isn't misplaced, she's made progress, and that's what counts).

"Let's celebrate," Ned cheers.

"The Last Airbender?" Michelle asks hopefully.

Ned beams at her, "If you're up for it!"

She is.

They marathon it, their little prize for cleaning Michelle's room. Three episodes in, they take a break to do some yoga as per Ned's request, and Michelle feels cleaner than she has in a long time.

And yeah, okay, she had been self destructing. But it's okay, as long as she chooses not to keep doing that. And if it takes a friend to help? That's alright, too, she thinks as Ned hands her a cup of water and they continue their ATLA marathon.


End file.
